Super Micro says no evidence of malicious hardware in its products

Computer hardware maker Super Micro has hit back at claims that its products were compromised by the Chinese government.

The US-based company published the results of the investigation in a letter to its customers written by its CEO which showed no indication that its motherboards had been compromised at the factory level and modified with Chinese surveillance equipment.

CEO and president Charles Liang stressed the fact that its products had not been tampered with, saying:

“After thorough examination and a range of functional tests, the investigations firm found absolutely no evidence of malicious hardware on our motherboards. These findings were no surprise to us. As we have stated repeatedly, our process is designed to protect the integrity and reliability of our products.”

Dispelling Bloomberg’s report

Back in October, Bloomberg published a report which claimed that a small number of Super Micro boards had been accessed by Chinese spies who had placed surveillance chips on them.

The goal of this endeavour was to allow the Chinese government to spy on US tech giants including Apple and AWS in addition to US government contractors.

Super Micro has denied these claims since the story was first published and now the hardware maker has the findings of a third-party investigator to back up its side of the story. The company also upped its security in response to Bloomberg’s story.

Liang offered further details on the investigation in his letter to the company’s customers, saying:

“Because the security and integrity of our products is our highest priority, we undertook a thorough investigation with the assistance of a leading, third-party investigations firm. A representative sample of our motherboards was tested, including the specific type of motherboard depicted in the article and motherboards purchased by companies referenced in the article, as well as more recently manufactured motherboards.”